On Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced a fresh set of proposed reforms aimed at strengthening New Jersey’s gun laws.

Yes, by all means, yes.

Tweak some details if necessary. But move forward, quickly and aggressively. Maybe the bills won’t achieve much. Doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of bad legislation out there that becomes law; we certainly won’t quibble over a proposal that may just reinforce existing gun restrictions.

So do it. Now.

This round of gun-control measures mostly tightens some gaps left by a more comprehensive set of restrictions approved in June. The earlier measures banned armor-piercing bullets, restricted ammunition magazine sizes and expanded background checks, among other restraints. The new group of bills covers a similar range of issues, including an update on ammo purchase regulations and defining as a crime so-called “straw purchases” — buying weapons that are then given to those banned from owning guns.

The announcement came within days of the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh that claimed 11 lives, but Murphy seemed eager to emphasize that this latest round of bills wasn’t just a reflexive response to those killings. He cited a “daily drumbeat” of gun violence as a constantly motivating factor.

But we would be fine with a little emotion fueling the process. We’ve grown weary of the National Rifle Association-inspired “advice” that the emotionally charged aftermath of these mass killings isn’t the time to rationally consider more gun controls. Any such debate, we’re told, should be conducted objectively, with cold, hard reason, after the grief and outrage fade a bit.

What has that accomplished? Nothing. Every effort to broaden sensible gun controls in this country inevitably bogs down in tortured hand-wringing over Second Amendment language and the supposed injustice of preventing people from having as many guns as they want, of any type they want, as quickly as they want. Each potential new restraint, no matter how modest, is treated as a conspiratorial step toward confiscation and authoritarianism. Legislators firmly in the pocket of the NRA jump through every available hoop to explain away painfully obvious links between the proliferation of guns and the proliferation of gun violence.

The caskets of brothers David and Cecil Rosenthal are carried out of Rodef Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (Photo: Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar via USA TODAY Network)

We’ve been saying since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012 that it’s time to bring emotion to the table, not wait for it to subside. That doesn’t mean recklessly throwing together poorly conceived bills. It does mean channeling that emotion into greater urgency in adopting reasonable measures on restricting weapons and ammunition availability, expanding background checks and assuring as best we can that guns only get into the hands of those who can properly handle them.

Gun violence isn’t just about the guns — but it’s about the guns. We must continue to address other causes of violence, including mental illness. But, as a nation, we also must drop the delusion that our gun culture doesn’t enhance the prospects of mass shootings. Start letting some of the anger over these massacres rule the day.